Hardest to learn is not Akira, Akira just has the most difficult moves to perform. Learning to play him is easy though, as most of his moves give you a free combo. You just need to be able to do the combo and use 3 or 4 really strong attacks all day. Shun Di has moves that are easy to do, but winning with him and playing him properly is hard. My vote for hardest to learn is Shun Di, you have to do more work to win a lot with Shun Di (although he's not too hard to learn in VF2).

Strongest character.. you mean like most damaging for each combo or throw? Probably Wolf, his throws and combos tend to do 40% damage or more. Jeffry is strong too. Lau can also do a lot of damage with one combo or throw.

Fastest is kind of subjective. Lots of characters have fast moves. Akira's dashing elbow and palm strikes are very quick. Pai has lot of quick pokes. The fastest character that you can get a lot of wins with is Akira. Watch the movies of him and you will see what I mean.
-----I'm not asking who is the best in the game cause it depends on the player not the fighter.
---
Yes, the player has a lot to do with it, but there's no denying some characters are just stronger than others. Akira and Lau are always strong and easy to win with. Kage is strong in VF2/3 and not as strong in VF4 (from what I hear).

Yeah i downloaded this movie 20MB.
of Akira(moonsuk) vs Jacky(shinz) and holy shit!
It was 2 minutes long and the first time i watched it i couldn't keep my eyes off the snow!
Akira looks cool and powerful.
Akira did this mean ass float combo where he kept comboing jacky about 30cm of the ground for about 3 metres! very cool.

I think Akira is the strongest in VF4. There are just infinite possibilities with Akira if you know how to make full use of Taiwan Step.
Btw, I think Akira's PIT is slower in execution compared to his other throws. Can anybody confirm this?

If I remember right, Taiwan step is the use of guard to cut a crouch dash short, giving precise placement along with damn near instant crouches.

The basic concept was to crouch dash and tap guard to stop short. I never played VF2 enough to really get good at it, but some folks I've talked to and tapes I've seen show good use of it with backwards crouch dashes used to hop out of imminent attack range, use it to stop short, so that they're forward crouch dash/dash would bring them back close so their next attack would be able either get a good deep hit (Akira) or their quicker attacks could minor counter even with their shorter range.

Tai stepping is moving forwards and backwards by using exclusively crouch dashes.

Korean step is constantly moving by mixing crouch dashes and dodges.
A dodge can't be interrupted by another dodge, but it can be interruped by a regular or crouch dash. So you do lots of E, CD, then more E, then more CD, until you're a whirling, juking, jiving, invincible blur. At least that's the theory. In practice doing it doesn't make you any harder to hit than a regular opponent who dashes a lot, so this idea is a bit overhyped.

Either step works if your opponent hasn't seen it before and gets confused.

I would strongly encourage beginning players to learn the magic of constant f,f b,b f,f b,b movement. That's very effective and you can (as mentioned by nutlog) press guard to stop on a dime if it looks like you're about to run into a fist or foot. Then you can work your way up to crouch dashing around... but be aware that getting hit while crouched often produces a stagger.

To view most movies in windows you need windows media player, which is at
http://www.divx.com
and click on products, then click Codec and download/install it.
This will allow you to see the movies from
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/.

I know, it seems like a ton of stuff. Once it's installed though it will be easy to view movies, just download and click open and they should never give you problems.

I think Jacky is the easiest to learn.
Akira is the hardest to learn.
Wolf is the most powerful (But damage depends on how you play, it could be with anybody).
I think Pai, Kage and Lau are the quickest.

Easiest to play effectively: Jacky and Pai. Maybe Lau too in VF4.
Hardest to play effectively: I'm guessing Shun and Aoi.
Most powerful: Kage. HA! I think I'm going to playing Jeffry alongside Kage.
Quickest: Pai and Aoi, and you could make a good case for a SDEing demon Akira.

LOL, yeah, I was being sarcastic. You probably missed "MY MAMMOTH VF4 REPORT," where I complained incessantly about Kage. My vote for strongest, by the way, is tentatively Akira for now. That guy just looks like a monster, that friggin' SDE.

Yeah, I did read that report way back, but wasn't sure whether you might have changed your mind since then. =P

Actually, after having played VF4test for months, then moving to ver.B... Kage seems even weaker because:
- he lost the df+P+K spinning chop (knocks down, uncounterable, staggers if it hits crouchers, fast execution)
- db+K is now crap (glitchy collision detection, more interruptible, very bad recovery compared to VF4test)
- f,f+P+K+G has slower execution and can be P-interrupted later than it could in the test version
- TFT Knee PPE d+P+KK only works on lights now, instead of lights and mids
- TFT RO potential has been reduced as well... the float arc after a few hits is lower than in VF4test

All this is in addition to previous complaints about Kage in VF4test:
- slow elbow that cannot counter many sweeps
- b,b+K+G is easily interruptible and leaves Kage back turned
- slower than most characters in a close-up fight